Vol. 7, Issue 1, Part E (2025)

Autism is a life-long condition that has an unpredictable prognosis. Studies have shown that transitioning into adolescence causes a lot of difficulties in the individual as they encounter physical and psychological changes in their body. Hence, the curiosities, frustrations, identity formation that comes along with it cannot be resolved due to the lack of expressive language in these autistic individuals. As the individual reaches adulthood, the problems with adaptive functioning, independent living and social communication add on to the cascade of event. Thus, the transitioning causes a lot of distress and anxiety in the parents. Although a few studies have been conducted on autistic adults, very few studies have talked about how adults with autism have journeyed through their life. Hence, this study intends to explore the transition from infancy to adulthood and what were the major challenges they experienced during the transition. This study used a qualitative research design, and narrative inquire was used for data collection. The study consists of five participants, who are the primary care givers of an autistic adult. The age range for the autistic adult was considered between 18 to 35 years. The participants were selected through snowball sampling, and only those who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria were selected. The data was analyzed using William Labov’s narrative analysis. The findings indicate that transition is multifaceted, and involves struggles throughout various aspects. The participants had retrospectively looked back at their child’s life with regret about the things that they could have done. The participants worry about the time after them and who will look after their child when they are gone.